The JournoList Membership

With the Herman Cain “scandal” breaking and the MSM falling all over themselves, it’s helpful to remember the JournoList membership.

Rich & Cheri Vail have an updated listing.  Notice that POLITICO has a number of members.

Angry Bitter Liberals

I think he makes that white Republican base of the party feel okay, feel that they’re not racist because they can like this guy, I think they like him because he’s a black man who knows his place.

— Karen Finney on Herman Cain

Occupy Oakland Devolves into “Lord of the Flies”

Self-realization dawns on at least one of the occupiers:

“At some point, we have to recognize that we can’t control everything,” said Boomer Frank, a 24-year-old tent resident and ad hoc camp organizer. “I’m anti-authoritarian, but we need to acknowledge that some things are out of our control.”

If only they could apply that lesson a little more broadly, e.g. to the police, to the economy as a whole even. Appropriately, it’s the cops who patrol the camp that get it. One officer compared the scene to “Lord of the Flies.” His supervisor was even more insightful:

One Oakland police supervisor said that the participants first appeared to him as “freethinking activists” but have since devolved into something more sinister. He said it was “interesting for a group that claims to be against current civilization and rules to set up a far more oppressive society than our own.”

Read the whole thing.

MORE:

American Glob adds:

The tagline for the 1990 Lord of the Flies film was this…

“We did everything the way grown-ups would have… What went wrong?”

Occupiers in Oakland, California may be asking themselves that question tonight.

MORE:

Andrew Breitbart reports:

Early yesterday morning, we received a tip from a reader in the San Francisco East Bay area who informed us that a local reporter’s life had been threatened by an activist at the Occupy Oakland demonstration.

Our source, who is fearful of reprisal and has requested anonymity, says that KGO-TV’s Amy Hollyfield was accosted by a man who threatened her and used a racial slur:

“We shoot white bitches like you around here.”

According to our source, the Oakland Police Department was apparently called to the scene. Inquiries to the police, and to Hollyfield, which began at roughly 8 a.m. Pacific time yesterday, are still unanswered today.

Other local morning news reports from three of the major Bay Area stations suggested that the Occupy Oakland tent city had descended into rat-infested squalor with complaints of vandalism, public urination, sexual harassment, and sex in public.

He has video at the link.

STILL MORE:

New York magazine uses another literary reference, this one from George Orwell:

All occupiers are equal — but some occupiers are more equal than others. In wind-whipped Zuccotti Park, new divisions and hierarchies are threatening to upend Occupy Wall Street and its leaderless collective.

Apparently it boils down to the drum circle.  As their Oakland brethren have learned, human nature always seems to rear its ugly head.  And how to organize yourselves into a civilized, responsible organization?  Reality bites.

Plus this:

From today’s battles, it’s not yet clear who will win the day: the organizers or the organized. But the month-long protest has clearly grown and evolved to a point where a truly leaderless movement will risk eviction — or, worse, insurrection.

As the communal sleeping bag argument between Lauren Digion and Sage Roberts threatened to get out of hand, a facilitator in a red hat walked by, brow furrowed. “Remember? You’re not allowed to do any more interviews,” he said to Digion. She nodded and went back to work. But when Roberts shouted, “Don’t tell me what to do!” Digion couldn’t hold back.

“Someone has to be told what to do,” she said. “Someone needs to give orders. There’s no sense of order in this fucking place.”

AND FROM The New York Post:

“They are defecating on our doorsteps,” fumed Catherine Hughes, a member of Community Board 1 and a stay at home mom who has the misfortune of living one block from the chaos. “A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of our kids.”

Fed up homeowners said that they’ve been subjected to insults and harassment as they trek to their jobs each morning. “The protesters taunt people who are on their way to work,” said James Fernandez, 51, whose apartment overlooks the park.

Board member Paul Cantor said that residents are fed up with the incessant racket that emanates from the protest at all hours. “It’s mostly a noise issue,” he said. If people can’t sleep and children can’t sleep because the protesters are banging drums then that’s a problem.”

The line to get into the standing room only meeting spilled out of the board’s office and onto the street outside where Zuccotti sympathizers sparred with angry residents. One elderly woman told a protester to stop screaming and was met with an even higher volume. “Get some earplugs!” retorted David Spano. “This is the street. I can say whatever I want! I can’t calm down, I’ve been struggling for 30 years!”

Angry Bitter Liberals

The last one.  Not this Nazi one we have now.

— Susan Sarandon, explaining she had sent a copy of “Dead Man Walking”, on which the movie is based, to the Pope.

Thomas Sowell on the “Black Experience”

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Thomas Sowell on Herman Cain – Fox Business Vid…, posted with vodpod

Forbes Endorses Rick Perry’s Flat Tax

The Wall Street Journal reports:

“I’m very, very excited by it,” Mr. Forbes said in a telephone interview. “What Perry is proposing is a radical simplification of the income tax code….It’s finally coming to pass.”

Mr. Perry officially announced his support for the flat tax in a speech on Wednesday. Mr. Forbes, who ran in 1996 and 2000 and now is advising the Perry camp, said that the “concept remains the same” as his own flat tax plan from the 1990s. That plan included a $36,000 exemption for a family of four and a 17% flat rate on income above that level. It also would have eliminated taxes on personal savings and capital gains in order to encourage investment.

In political terms, the Perry proposal appears to be a response to the popularity of candidate Herman Cain’s own radical “9-9-9” tax plan, which combines a flat tax on businesses and individuals with a national sales tax.

Mr. Forbes – like some other political observers – thinks Mr. Perry’s embrace of the flat tax makes it even more likely that tax reform will become a key issue in the 2012 campaign, particularly for Republicans.

“It’ll be a huge tonic politically and economically and make it a huge issue next year,” he said. “And there will be a big mandate for tax simplification.”

Barack Obama / Jimmy Carter

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Barack Obama / Jimmy Carter, posted with vodpod

Angry Bitter Liberals

— Adam Levine of the band Maroon 5

Twitter user “Brock Boehlert” retorts: “Hey @adamlevine how much did you make from Fox when ‘Harder To Breathe’ was used on American Idol?”

Energy Department Altered Loan-Related Releases

From CNBC:

Someone affiliated with the Department of Energy has been going back to make changes to press releases posted on the Internet weeks and months ago, CNBC has found.

The changes occurred in two press releases from the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program.

Both were changed to remove the name of a company that has received negative press attention in recent days, SunPower, and replace it with the name of another company, NRG Energy.

In the April case, the Department of Energy loan programs office announced in a press release on April 12 “conditional commitment” to a $1.187 billion loan guarantee to support the California Valley Solar Ranch project, which it said was “sponsored by SunPower Corporation.”

But that release was later changed on one website to say the project was “sponsored by NRG Energy.” The date on the release remained “April 12, 2011.”

In a second instance of retroactive press release revision, someone changed a release from September 30 that announced the finalization of the California Solar Generation project. In an early version of the September 30 press release, the government said the project was “sponsored by SunPower.” That was later changed to “sponsored by NRG Energy.”

In a statement, a spokesman for the Department of Energy said that the changes were made by outside contractors for the department responsible for maintaining the Loan Programs Office website.

“The only website that changed was a separately maintained loan program webpage that is managed by support services contractors,” the spokesman said. “While updating the project fact sheet to reflect the changes in the ownership of the California Valley Solar Ranch project, those contractors inadvertently changed the news bulletins posted on the LPO website.”

UPDATE: On Wednesday evening, a Department of Energy spokesman said that the press releases had been returned to their original content as a result of CNBC’s inquiry about the changes.

 

Crony Capitalism: The Federal Reserve Edition

The Government Accountability Office has just completed its second audit of the Federal Reserve. The report, a summary available here, focuses on “the enormous conflicts of interest that existed at the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.”

Some of its findings:

• The affiliations of the Federal Reserve’s board of directors with financial firms continue to pose “reputational risks” to the Federal Reserve System.
• The policy of the Federal Reserve to give members of the banking industry the power to both elect and serve on the Federal Reserve’s board of directors creates “an appearance of a conflict of interest.”
• The GAO identified 18 former and current members of the Federal Reserve’s board affiliated with banks and companies that received emergency loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis including General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, and Lehman Brothers.
• There are no restrictions on directors of the Federal Reserve Board from communicating concerns about their respective banks to the staff of the Federal Reserve.
• Many of the Federal Reserve’s board of directors own stock or work directly for banks that are supervised and regulated by the Federal Reserve. These board members oversee the Federal Reserve’s operations including salary and personnel decisions.
• Under current regulations, Fed directors who are employed by the banking industry or own stock in financial institutions can participate in decisions involving how much interest to charge to financial institutions receiving Fed loans; and the approval or disapproval of Federal Reserve credit to healthy banks and banks in “hazardous” condition.
• The Federal Reserve does not publicly disclose its conflict of interest regulations or when it grants waivers to its conflict of interest regulations.
• 21 members of the Federal Reserve’s board of directors were involved in making personnel decisions in the division of supervision and regulation at the Fed.

The GAO included several instances of specific individuals whose membership on the Fed’s board of directors created the appearance of a conflict of interest including:

Stephen Friedman, the former chairman of the New York Fed’s board of directors.

During the end of 2008, the New York Fed approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap loans from the Federal Reserve. During this time period, Stephen Friedman, the Chairman of the New York Fed, sat on the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs, and owned shares in Goldman’s stock, something that was prohibited by the Federal Reserve’s conflict of interest regulations. Mr. Friedman received a waiver from the Fed’s conflict of interest rules in late 2008. This waiver was not publicly disclosed. After Mr. Friedman received this waiver, he continued to purchase stock in Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009. According to the GAO, the Federal Reserve did not know that Mr. Friedman continued to purchases Goldman’s stock after his waiver was granted.

Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, and board director at the New York Fed

The GAO found that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York consulted with General Electric on the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility established during the financial crisis. The Fed later provided $16 billion in financing to General Electric under this emergency lending program. This occurred while Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, served as a director on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase and board director at the New York Federal Reserve

Dimon served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the same time that his bank received emergency loans from the Fed and while his bank was used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for the Fed’s emergency lending programs. In March of 2008, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns. During this time period, Jamie Dimon was successful in getting the Fed to provide JP Morgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. Dimon also convinced the Fed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired this troubled investment bank.

You can read the the full GAO report here.